This article is from WeChat official account:Interface News (ID: wowjiemian)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Shexiao Chen, Ke Xiaobin, edit: Wen Shu Qi, the original title: “community buy midfielder war : Open positions and withdraw points, the giants’ accounts are almost too much to calculate”, the first picture comes from: Visual China
After half a year of crazy siege, community group buying began to secretly lower the fire.
“After the Spring Festival, all large and medium platforms have entered the stage of refined operation.” A co-founder of a central player in the community group buying industry told the interface news reporter.
According to the interface news, Meituan Optimal Group has begun to rectify the group leader and raise the barriers to entry; Didi’s Orange Heart Optimal Group regards the layout of the grid warehouse as an important strategy; and Duoduomai also began to strengthen the optimization mechanism. Grid has iterated several rounds of personnel and eliminated those agents who were not “professional” enough.
Community group buying has undergone a land enclosure phase for more than half a year, and the stock market (community resources) has basically been divided up. At the same time, during the rapid expansion, from the data point of view, the company has made a distinction between good and bad communities and built a refined operation model.
This is inconsistent with the market’s judgment that community group buying companies will run wild during the Spring Festival.
A typical phenomenon is that community group buying BD(business development) began to lose out on a large scale.
After the second half of last year, giants such as Meituan and Didi entered the market one after another, chanting the slogans of “taking the first place in the market” and “advancing to 1000 cities each year”. At that time, the salaries of the team leader and BD also went up. Nowadays, among several BD groups added by a community group buying platform, a large number of BDs lose their jobs every day and quit their work groups.
Policies also have an impact on the situation of this industry-in December last year, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Commerce issued aThe “nine must nots” of group buying in the district clearly stipulated the distribution model and price of the goods, which to some extent ended the “bright” price war. This has invalidated the methods that Internet giants were good at and used to when entering new fields in the past, and price restrictions have compressed the space for disorderly expansion, and the era of refined operations has come ahead of schedule.
Nevertheless, in this still-competitive track, players from all walks of life are still engaged in tug-of-war within their capabilities. It is foreseeable that this track is about to usher in another round of reshuffle, and the giants are still the players most likely to get tickets to the finals.
Open positions and withdraw points at the same time
In order to stay at the poker table, the top player once frantically replenished ammunition.
“In November, Orange Heart Optimum can be said to be a dig at no cost.” At the end of last year, in the face of higher salaries, a local pusher joined Orange Heart Optimum from a smaller platform. At the most exaggerated time, 17 regiments can be opened in one day.
For this just-needed and high-frequency industry, the Spring Festival of 2021 is a good time for community group buying and war.
After more than half a year of fighting, the Internet giants that entered the community group buying have achieved phased results. According to a report by Caijing, the three community group buying platforms of Duoduomai, Orange Heart and Meituan Optimal have all exceeded 10 million in unit volume in December last year.
The Spring Festival is indeed a rare opportunity. During the festival, the demand for group buying in the community has skyrocketed, and the concentration of users is high, and it also has the conditions for new and growth. The situation of “Chinese New Year in situ” has even led community group buying companies to “check in” first-tier cities on a large scale.
A warehousing and freight staff from Meituan Optimal told Jiemian News that from before the Spring Festival to March, he can only take one day off a week and work normally during the Spring Festival. An industry insider familiar with the supply chain told me that during the Spring Festival, the volume of freight increased, and the distribution fees below the grid warehouse of Duoduo had increased by two times, and the logistics cost of a single piece had also increased by three times.
Therefore, the Spring Festival is still an opportunity for overtaking in corners for giants who are not bad for money. After all, compared with established players such as Xingsheng Optimal Group and Shihui Group, these giants have actually reached the track in less than half a year.
On January 12, Duoduomai opened in Shanghai, becoming the first platform to open a group buying outlet in Shanghai. After that, Orange Heart Optimal opened two areas in Beijing, Fengtai and Daxing. At the end of January, Meituan preferred to open city in Beijing.
But the other side of the large-scale opening of positions in first-tier cities is that before the Spring Festival until now, the giants have also retreated a large number of people and positions in the stock cities.
A Meituan preferential tweet said that after more than three months of work in Meituan, he still failed to make a smooth conversion, and his early efforts were in vain. In addition to them, there are now a large number of BDs and group leaders facing unemployment every day.
“At the end of December, the staff of Meituan told me that the company was rectifying group leaders who did not pull groups, occupied positions but did not have orders.” A Guangdong convenience store owner said. In addition, since the beginning of this year, these heads have requirements for the assessment of tasks: they need to guarantee the amount of 20 orders per day. Many heads from different regions told Jiemian News that it has become the consensus of the industry to increase the entry barriers for heads.
In fact, the top players who are always ready for hand-to-hand combat terminated the “burning money” mode at the end of December due to a document, and ran into a turning point in operation.
On December 22, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Commerce held an administrative guidance meeting to regulate the order of community group purchases. Six companies including Ali, Tencent, JD.com, Meituan, Pinduoduo, and Didi participated in all. The meeting put forward the “nine no” requirements, including no low-price dumping, unfair competition, etc.
Affected by this policy, public price wars are no longer allowed. This means that the biggest advantage of the giants-the role of “money” temporarily failed.
A supplier of a leading community group buying platform stated that after the People’s Daily official document criticized the community’s group buying monopoly, the price war for each warehouse it was responsible for had been reduced. “The punishment is not strong, but the damage is great. .” But for him, this is a good thing,because they have been losing money for a long time before that.
Can’t calculate the account
In the development stage of last year’s community group buying rash, all players are striving to cover more points in order to grab the beach market and make a large scale. At the same time, this is also an opportunity for testing.
But those who enter the game need to give an answer after all. In the opinion of the co-founder of the aforementioned central community group buying company, “After nearly a year of operation, it was found that the group efficiency in certain areas was not high. As a result of refined operation, those BDs that did not perform well would be fired. .”
The company only needs to leave a real master “GMV password”People, reduce costs and increase efficiency——The strategic adjustment of the county market is a typical example.
In the “sinking” county market that was valued in the past, players in the central region were the first to be able to hold it. “The monthly GMV of county-level cities is about 2 million, the commission of the group leader accounts for 10% of the total cost, the cost of warehousing logistics is also 10%, and the operating cost is about 8%, but the gross profit is 160,000. Around that, if you count it this way, you will lose 240,000 per month.” Another co-founder of a community group buying platform said as an example. Because of this, since the end of last year, they have taken the lead in retreating from the county-level market.
In the county market, Meituan Optimal, Xingsheng Optimal and Shihuituan have also adopted the dual mode of “direct management + agency”. “Each agent is responsible for its own profits and losses. This dual model allows the top players to minimize costs and reduce losses.” An industry insider familiar with the supply chain said.
This means that even large companies are putting the pressure of profit and loss on their agents to ease their own profitability pressure. Players in the central region can’t carry it, and the giants can’t count it.
“This year, Orange Heart Optimal will increase the scale of offline stores.” An investor close to Orange Heart Optimal stated in an interview with the interface news reporter. After calculating the efficiency and cost, the Orange Heart Optimal team found that, The return on investment of the group leader is far less than that of the offline store.
The supplier of the aforementioned top community group buying player stated that he “cut off” nearly half of his warehouse before the Spring Festival last year.
The reason for the withdrawal is nothing more than a loss, and the loss is affected by many factors. “Some are traffic, some are purchase and sales relationships, some are performance capabilities, and some are the cost of central warehouses.”
From September last year to years ago, this supplier has been following the “strategic loss” of the platform, but as the platform began to transform, they also began to simultaneously pursue profitability. “Volume is not our only criterion. We still see whether we make money or not. As a merchant, our ultimate goal is to make money.”
An investor who has been paying attention to the new retail industry for a long time said that in addition to the impact of policies, another factor in community group buying entering the stage of refined operation is the particularity of the industry. “Community group buying involves many links such as suppliers, sorting, logistics, warehouse distribution, etc., and each piece of cost investment is relatively large, which is not suitable for the previous Internet burning mode.”
midfield see-sawBattle
This is still true for giants, and small and medium-sized players must cherish their surplus.
“After the top players came in last year, we could only significantly reduce the number of operating points and also closed down some other cities’ businesses.” The co-founder of the aforementioned central platform said that compared with the abundant funds of the giants, they There is no possibility of the money coming to fight the giants. “Our current business is more concentrated in one province. In the first half of last year, our strategy was still a national platform.”
To do a good job in the area, increase the net value of users, and provide related value-added services has become one of the ways to defend. In the eyes of the aforementioned co-founders, this is their path to refined operations.
For giants who are not short of funds, after they stop frantically burning money, the ability to perform contracts becomes the next focus. The aforementioned investors stated that the competition in community group buying actually includes four key elements: local push capabilities, online traffic, capital, and supply chain. When the price war is terminated, the giants will start a new round of tug-of-war around these four elements.
Since this year, Orange Center has turned to the layout of grid warehouses as one of its important strategies.
The grid warehouse is a transit storage center between the community group buying center warehouse and the self-pickup point. It is also an important link different from the traditional e-commerce logistics form, which affects the final performance result. At the end of last year, the number of grid warehouses established by Orange Heart has exceeded 1,000. Up to now, it has been close to 3,000 in just three months.
An orange heart preferred middle-level person said that they realized that , the retention and repurchase of users ultimately depend on the quality and service of the contract. “New users always account for only a part of the proportion. If we cannot retain high-frequency users who repurchase for a long time in the future, we will have no way to win on the battlefield for a long time. So we think we still need to focus on refined operations. “
In his view, performance of the contract will eventually become the key to determining whether the business model is established.
Under the shift of refined operation, the specific planning of the grid warehouse has also changed: Last year, the grid warehouse optimized by Orange Heart was a performance type, only for warehousing, not for sales; this year, in some In regions, especially counties and township markets, the company will build more “integrated sales and distribution” grid warehouses. In other words, the person in charge of the grid warehouse should assume the functions of team leader and operation, and be responsible for sales.
And Duoduo Maicai also adjusted its strategy while running. The central warehouse and grid warehouse have a one or two month loss transition period. After that, they will help suppliers and agents stop losses through price increases and other policy support. Some other head players have begun to explore the use of manpower to improve efficiency, such as hiring full-time staff through the team leader to deliver goods to the door, to solve point-to-point problems.
From the entry of all well-known VCs into startups in 2018, to the influx of giants last year, from a longer perspective, community group buying has just entered the midfield. The price war was temporarily terminated, and the giants began to explore new ways of competition.
Pingduoduo, Meituan, Didi, Ali or Xingsheng are preferred. Who can reach the end of the protracted battle? In the refined operation stage, how to improve efficiency, reduce product loss, and make the supply chain more efficient will become the focus of competition in the next stage.
(If you have any thoughts on this article, welcome to add the author’s WeChat communication: Charlotte-007; Nfeng_2018)
This article is from WeChat official account:Interface News (ID: wowjiemian)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Shexiao Chen, Kexiao Bin